Coming up on Word Matters, some very good questions.
I'm Emily Brewster,
and Word Matters is produced by Merriam-Webster in collaboration with New England Public Media.
On each episode, Merriam-Webster editors Neil Servin, Amin Shea, Peter Sakalowski,
and I explore some aspect of the English language from the dictionary's vantage point.
A peek in our inbox reveals what curious and insightful listeners we have.
We're happy to address some of the queries you brought to us.
Here's Amon Shea.
This week, in our listener mailbag, we have a brace of questions about expressions or idioms,
the first of which is from Mark Walker, who writes,
hello, I'm trying to find the origin of the idiom.
He couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag.
And Mark said that he had done a little digging and thought this was originally an Australian phrase,
although it also could have been in a comic strip.
early 20th century comic writer named Ted Dorgan.
And additionally, Anna Hammond writes in and has a question on the history of the phrase,
cross my heart and hope to die, because she always feels slightly uneasy saying this.
In the first question, Mark is correct.
As far as our records indicate, this is of Australian origin.
Not that I've ever associated it with Australia,